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Dwarf cancels construction of Wall: Creature occupying site

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Revision as of 00:59, 22 February 2013 by Lethosor (talk | contribs) (Channeling natural floors is another way to keep dwarves from blocking a building site)
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This error occurs all too often when a dwarf is trying to build a wall and chooses to stand in the tile of the wall-to-be-built. This appears to be fallout from the change to prevent dwarves from walling themselves out of the fortress.


To resolve this problem, try the following (roughly in order of ease):

  • Cancel the construction, then reissue the job.
  • Designate "restricted" traffic areas to force the dwarf to approach the build site from a more favorable direction.
  • If the wall is being placed on soil or another natural floor, channel the building site to prevent the dwarf from standing there (walls can be built on open space, as long as there is an adjacent floor tile). Note that this will not work if the only access to the building site is diagonal.
  • Create an alternate path to the build site (dig a tunnel, remove a wall, or build a floor).


To avoid this problem, attempt to follow best practices:

  • Don't submit building jobs on a tile where a dwarf is standing.
  • For constructions in tight quarters, submit any "problematic" tiles first, wait for them to be built, then submit the rest.
  • For large constructions in the open, submit all the jobs at a single time by using u or k.
  • Don't issue build orders that will intentionally strand the builder--rather than wall themselves out, they will cause this error (which is better than silently starving to death).
  • If you expect problems, preemptively designate restricted traffic areas.